Court convicts Ukrainian woman who endangered Estonian man through sex while HIV-positive
TALLINN – A court in Estonia convicted a 47-year-old woman who came to Saaremaa island with a wave of war refugees from Ukraine and had sexual intercourse with a local man despite the fact that she was HIV-positive, the regional Saarte Haal writes.
The West District Prosecutor’s Office accused the woman of attempting to cause serious health damage. Since she was no longer taking her medication and not seeing a doctor regularly, her viral load increased and the risk of infection became high.
“Knowing that the main mode of transmission of HIV is unprotected sexual intercourse with an infected person, the woman had unprotected sexual intercourse on two occasions in July and August 2022 with a 55-year-old man, whom she did not inform about carrying the virus,” the prosecutor wrote in the indictment sent to Parnu County Court.
Fortunately, the man was not infected with the virus, and in legal terms the woman’s act remained an attempt only, Saarte Haal writes.
The woman spent two days in pretrial detention in the summer of 2022. At the hearing held in the Kuressaare courthouse of the Parnu County Court at the end of October this year, she was found guilty and sentenced to one year in prison. As a result of an abridged procedure, the sentence is reduced to eight months, with two days subtracted from it.
In reality, the woman will not have to go to prison, provided that she does not commit another intentional crime during a two-year probation period.
Additionally, the court ordered the woman to pay 3,508 euros in procedural costs to the state, of which 1,812.50 euros is compensation levies, 542 euros the costs of expert analyses and 1,153.56 euros the payment and costs of an appointed counsel. The court ruling has not entered into force yet.
